This is a film about Diane Arbus, but it is not a historical biography. Arbus, who lived from 1923 to 1971, is considered by many to be one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century. Certainly, her pictures changed the face of American photography forever.

Fur pays homage to a brilliant artistic talent who challenged accepted notions of beauty and ugliness, and forever changed photography through her radical techniques and subject matter. Aptly, Shainberg and screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson have conjured FUR not as a biopic, but as something different, unique and mysterious, intertwining real aspects of Arbus’s life with invented characters and an imaginary narrative. It is a new way of cinematically approaching the portrayal of an historically important person, and captures the real dilemma of a 1958 housewife who is torn between love for her husband and children and her profound need to create and explore. Brilliantly performed by Kidman and Downey, FUR is a tale of artistic and personal self-discovery; an Alice-in-Wonderland adventure that is both exciting and scary, and ultimately, deeply moving.

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